I find Pinterest a difficult site to use on a personal level.  I’m not a big shopper and personally don’t have the time or inclination to search Pinterest for things to buy or collect ‘nice’ images.  However I know Pinterest really works for business.

Oxfordshire Pinterest MapI’m excited though about the new Pinterest Place pins both on a personal level and for business.

Using the Place Pins you can build up a map with interesting places to visit, eat and either use it on a mobile when you are out and about or share it with others.  Have a look at my Board about Oxfordshire

You start by choosing a city and then can add points of interest or places to eat by selecting (images) Pins that have already been added to Pinterest or uploading your own image.  If you want to add somewhere that has no pins on Pinterest, you will need to upload an image first and then pin it to your map.

Now this could prove useful for me when planning holidays.  But imagine if you are a tourism business or in the hotel industry.  You could create a Pinterest Board informing people about your area and where to go.  Restaurants could also make use of it.  Have a look at these ways the travel industry has already started to make use of place pins.

As an e-commerce site, how about creating a map to show people where your products are sourced from or ask people to pin images to your map where they were when they used your item?  Pin the places that sell your product perhaps?  The ideas are endless.

Let us know how you are going to use Place Pins.